Attitude Ascriptions Research Articles

Ascriptions of propositional attitudes. An analysis in terms of intentional objects

Having briefly sketched the aims of our paper, namely, to logically analyse the ascription of propositional attitudes to somebody else in terms, not of Fregean senses or of intensions-with-s, but of the intentional object of the person spoken about, say, the believer or intender (Section 1), we try to introduce the concept of an intentional object as simply as possible, to wit, as coming into view whenever two (or more) subjective belief-worlds strikingly diverge (Section 2). Then, we assess the pros and cons of Frege’s view that the indirect reference of an expression is nothing but its customary sense (Sections 3–4), and call the reader’s attention to the fact that in belief ascriptions de re we take it for granted that the believer’s intentional object is at the same time a ‘citizen’ of the belief ascriber’s subjective world (or, for that matter, the real word), and that the idea of such a ‘dual citizenship’ is even more obviously presupposed in the cases of true belief and propositional knowledge (Section 5). Then, we try to argue that it is more fertile to take the belief ascriber’s intentional object to be, not the whole state of affairs the believer has in mind and thinks to exist, but the latter’s intentional object as such, that is, as being his intentional object (Section 6). Finally, we discuss the intricate and mostly neglected question of whether an intentional object’s inhabiting two or more subjective belief-worlds should be considered to be sort of a ‘transmundane identity’ in the numerical sense or rather in some deviant sense of the term, which can be specified as a momentous subcase of a ‘categorial difference’ (Section 7).

Counterfactual attitudes and multi-centered worlds

Counterfactual attitudes like imagining, dreaming, and wishing create a problem for the standard formal semantic theory of de re attitude ascriptions. I show how the problem can be avoided if we represent an agent's attitudinal possibilities using multi-centered worlds, possible worlds with multiple distinguished individuals, each of which represents an individual with whom the agent is acquainted. I then present a compositional semantics for de re ascriptions according to which singular terms are assignment-sensitive expressions and attitude verbs are assignment shifters. http://dx.doi.org/10.3765/sp.5.5 BibTeX info

Simply Extended Mind

For more than one decade, Andy Clark has defended the now-famous extended mind thesis, the idea that cognitive processes leak into the world. In this paper I analyse Clark’s theoretical justification for the thesis: explanatory simplicity. I argue that his way of justifying the thesis leads into contradiction, either at the level of propositional attitude ascriptions or at the theoretical level. I evaluate three possible strategies of dealing with this issue, concluding that they are all likely to fail and that therefore, as regards explanatory simplicity, the burden of proof is on Clark’s side. The paper divides into two main sections: in “Simplicity and Coherence”, I define the two concepts that are important in this context (simplicity and explanatory coherence). In “How to Cope with Coherence”, these two concepts are applied to the central thought experiment, the Inga/Otto case. It will be shown that justifying the extended mind thesis by reference to simplicity may cause trouble, because ‘extended’ behavioural descriptions are likely to yield rather complicated explanations.

De Re A Priori Knowledge

Suppose a sentence of the following form is true in a certain context: 'Necessarily, whenever one believes that the F is uniquely F if anything is, and x is the F, one believes that x is uniquely F if anything is'. I argue that almost always, in such a case, the sentences that result when both occurrences of 'believes' are replaced with 'has justification to believe', 'knows', or 'knows a priori' will also be true in the same context. I also argue that many sentences of the relevant form are true in ordinary contexts, and conclude that a priori knowledge of contingent de re propositions is a common and unmysterious phenomenon. However, because of the pervasive context-sensitivity of propositional attitude ascriptions, the question what it is possible to know a priori concerning a given object will have very di erent answers in di erent contexts.

The implicature theory: a case study DOI:10.5007/1808-1711.2010v14n3p405

Several attempts have been made by direct reference theorists to accommodate the intuitive datum of referential opacity—the failure of co-referential proper names to substitute salva veritate for one another within the embedded ‘that’-clauses of attitude ascription sentences. The theory advocated by Nathan Salmon in his 1986 book Frege’s Puzzle is probably the best worked out version of what is referred to below as ‘The Implicature Theory’. Salmon claims that referential opacity is an illusion brought about by our failure to distinguish the semantic content of attitude ascriptions from their ‘pragmatic impartations’, as Salmon calls them. Regrettably, his work leaves it entirely mysterious how the relevant pragmatic impartations are routinely conveyed. Salmon vaguely suggests that Gricean conversational implicatures are involved. My central claim in this paper is that Salmon is mistaken, since the pragmatic impartations required by his theory do not satisfy the criterion of cancelability, which is met whenever a genuine conversational implicature occurs. The argument in question is, to the best of my knowledge, original with me.

Delusions and Not-Quite-Beliefs

Bortolotti argues that the irrationality of many delusions is no different in kind from the irrationality that marks many non-pathological states typically treated as beliefs. She takes this to secure the doxastic status of those delusions. Bortolotti’s approach has many benefits. For example, it accounts for the fact that we can often make some sense of what deluded subjects are up to, and helps explain why some deluded subjects are helped by cognitive behavioral therapy. But there is an alternative approach that secures the same benefits as Bortolotti’s account while bringing additional benefits. The alternative approach treats both many delusions and many of the non-pathological states to which Bortolotti compares them as in-between states. Subjects in in-between states don’t fully believe the beliefs which it is sometimes convenient to ascribe to them. This alternative approach to belief and belief-ascription fits well with an independently attractive account of the varied purposes of our ordinary attitude ascriptions. It also makes it easier to make fine-grained distinctions between intentional attitudes of different kinds.

The decline of theory of mind in old age is (partly) mediated by developmental changes in domain‐general abilities

Following up on existing, mixed findings in the literature on social cognition in old age different aspects of theory of mind were investigated in younger and older adults. In line with some previous findings, older participants--though matched with the younger ones on crystallized abilities--performed significantly worse both on tasks requiring the ascription of complex intentional attitudes to story protagonists and on tasks of recognizing subtle emotional expressions from video displays. Control analyses showed, however, that these deficits are partly explained by domain-general declines in processing speed and executive function. The implications of these findings for the nature of social cognition and its fate in old age are discussed.

Propositions and Attitude Ascriptions: A Fregean Account

NoûsVolume 45, Issue 4 p. 595-639 Propositions and Attitude Ascriptions: A Fregean Account David J. Chalmers, David J. Chalmers Australian National University and New York UniversitySearch for more papers by this author David J. Chalmers, David J. Chalmers Australian National University and New York UniversitySearch for more papers by this author First published: 01 March 2011 https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-0068.2010.00788.xCitations: 60Read the full textAboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onFacebookTwitterLinked InRedditWechat Citing Literature Volume45, Issue4December 2011Pages 595-639 RelatedInformation

Simple Sentences, Speech Acts, and the ‘Enlightenment Problem’

Anti‐substitution intuitions play a central role in discussion of the semantics of propositional attitude ascriptions, and all theorists seem to agree that these intuitions should be explained by either semantic or pragmatic means. Jennifer Saul (2007) has recently argued that it is impossible to explain all our anti‐substitution intuitions thus. In particular, she argues that any account of the semantics of propositional attitude ascriptions faces the ‘Enlightenment Problem’ – i.e. no such account can explain the fact that we have anti‐substitution intuitions about utterances of speakers who are ‘unenlightened’ as to the fact that certain names are co‐referential. In this paper, I suggest an alternative explanation of our intuitions about unenlightened utterances, and in doing so offer an original strategy for explaining truth‐conditional intuitions by either semantic or pragmatic means.

HOW TO USE A CONCEPT YOU REJECT

Inferentialist accounts of concept possession are often supported by examples in which rejection of some inference seems to amount to rejection of some concept, with the apparently implausible consequence that anyone who rejects the inference cannot so much as understand those who use the concept. This consequence can be avoided by distinguishing conditions necessary for direct uses of a concept (to describe the non-cognitive world) from conditions necessary for content-specifying uses (to specify what someone thinks or says). I consider how this claim about the non-uniformity of concept possession accords with different theories of attitude ascription and with claims about reverse compositionality. Surprisingly little stands in the way of the claim that someone unable to use a concept directly can nevertheless satisfy conditions for using it in a content-specifying thought.

De Se Attitudes: Ascription and Communication15

This paper concerns two points of intersection between de se attitudes and the study of natural language: attitude ascription and communication. I first survey some recent work on the semantics of de se attitude ascriptions, with particular attention to ascriptions that are true only if the subject of the ascription has the appropriate de se attitude. I then examine – and attempt to solve – some problems concerning the role of de se attitudes in linguistic communication.

The fuzzy logic of socialised attitudes in Liangshan Nuosu

Liangshan Nuosu (Tibeto-Burman: P.R. China) exhibits two cross-linguistically rare attitude particles which ascribe wishes and fears to an impersonal socialised agent serving as a speaker-hedge. Linguistic properties of these particles not covered by Potts's (2007a,b) features of expressive content are elaborated upon. It is proposed to analyse the Nuosu attitude operators as illocutionary force indicating devices (IFIDs, see Searle and Vanderveken, 1985) and the utterances which host them as speech acts of the expressive type. Success conditions for these speech acts are developed in a fuzzy logic system providing an accurate account of both successful and unsuccessful attitude ascriptions. The fuzzy logic system builds on the distinction between lower-level and higher-level formulae (following Thijsse (1996) and Schwartz (2003)). For lower-level formulae it incorporates a fuzzy epistemic and a fuzzy buletic mode of evaluation. Higher-level formulae are evaluated in a bivalent evaluation mode { successful, unsuccessful}.

Two Types of Belief Report

Ascriptions of belief and other doxastic propositional attitudes are commonly interpreted as quantifying over a set of possible worlds constituting doxastic alternatives for the belief experiencer. Katz (2000, 2003, 2008) has argued that belief predicates and other stative attitude predicates, along with stative predicates generally, lack a Davidsonian event argument and therefore do not report on any eventuality (event or state). Hacquard (2010), in contrast, assumes that all attitude ascriptions describe an event corresponding to the mental state of the attitude experiencer. The present investigation suggests that the strengths of doxastic predicates can be modeled by generalized quantifiers over the doxastic alternative set, permitting us to formulate and test predictions based on standard interactions of these quantifiers with negation when these ascriptions are negated. This provides a middle ground between Katz and Hacquard, whereby some belief ascriptions are interpreted as nothing more than a quantified condition over a doxastic alternative set, while others attribute a Davidsonian belief state to the experiencer. In the latter case, the condition involving quantification over doxastic alternatives is an essential content condition which serves to individuate the eventuality described by the belief report, and to identify it across possible worlds.

Category mistakes are meaningful

Category mistakes are sentences such as ‘Colourless green ideas sleep furiously’ or ‘The theory of relativity is eating breakfast’. Such sentences are highly anomalous, and this has led a large number of linguists and philosophers to conclude that they are meaningless (call this ‘the meaninglessness view’). In this paper I argue that the meaninglessness view is incorrect and category mistakes are meaningful. I provide four arguments against the meaninglessness view: in Sect. 2, an argument concerning compositionality with respect to category mistakes; in Sect. 3 an argument concerning synonymy facts of category mistakes; in Sect. 4 concerning embeddings of category mistakes in propositional attitude ascriptions; and in Sect. 5 concerning the uses of category mistakes in metaphors. Having presented these arguments, in Sect. 6 I briefly discuss some of the positive motivations for accepting the meaninglessness view and argue that they are unconvincing. I conclude that the meaninglessness view ought to be rejected.

Propositions and the Substitution Anomaly

The Substitution Anomaly is the failure of intuitively coreferential expressions of the corresponding forms “that S” and “the proposition that S” to be intersubstitutable salva veritate under certain ‘selective’ attitudinal verbs that grammatically accept both sorts of terms as complements. The Substitution Anomaly poses a direct threat to the basic assumptions of Millianism, which predict the interchangeability of “that S” and “the proposition that S”. Jeffrey King has argued persuasively that the most plausible Millian solution is to treat the selective attitudinal verbs as lexically ambiguous, having distinct meanings associated with the different sorts of complement terms. In opposition this approach, I argue that there are independent reasons for maintaining the univocality of these verbs and that this can be done while accommodating the Substitution Anomaly and without sacrificing the transparency of the relevant attitude ascriptions. In particular, I show how, by employing an extended version of Edward Zalta’s system of intensional logic for abstract objects, one can construct for a regimented fragment ℜ of English containing the relevant vocabulary a semantical theory ℑ which (a) treats ℜ’s selective attitudinal verbs as univocal, (b) regards genuine terms as occurring transparently under such verbs in sentences of ℜ, and yet (c) predicts the occurrence of the Substitution Anomaly in ℜ.

Variabilism

Variabilism is the view that proper names (like pronouns) are semantically represented as variables. Referential names, like referential pronouns, are assigned their referents by a contextual variable assignment (Kaplan 1989). The reference parameter (like the world of evaluation) may also be shifted by operators in the representation language. Indeed verbs that create hyperintensional contexts, like `think', are treated as operators that simultaneously shift the world and assignment parameters. By contrast, metaphysical modal operators shift the world of assessment only. Names, being variables, refer rigidly in the latter merely intensional contexts, but may vary their reference in hyperintensional contexts. This conforms to the intuition that the content of attitude ascriptions encapsulates referential uncertainty. Furthermore, names in hyperintensional contexts are ambiguous between de re* and de dicto* interpretations. This fact is used to account for asymmetric mistaken identity attributions (for example, Biron thinks Katherine is Rosaline, but he doesn't think Rosaline is Katherine).The variable theory compares favorably with its alternatives, including Millianism and descriptivism. Millians cannot account for the behavior of names in hyperintensional contexts, while descriptivists cannot generate a necessary contrast between intensional and hyperintensional contexts. No other theory can capture the facts pertaining to the existentially bound use of names.

The function of folk psychology: mind reading or mind shaping?

I argue for two claims. First I argue against the consensus view that accurate behavioral prediction based on accurate representation of cognitive states, i.e. mind reading, is the sustaining function of propositional attitude ascription. This practice cannot have been selected in evolution and cannot persist, in virtue of its predictive utility, because there are principled reasons why it is inadequate as a tool for behavioral prediction. Second I give reasons that favor an alternative account of the sustaining function of propositional attitude ascription. I argue that it serves a mind-shaping function. Roughly, propositional attitude ascription enables human beings to set up regulative ideals that function to mold behavior so as to make it easier to coordinate with.

EXPRESSIVE‐ASSERTIVISM*

Abstract: Hybrid metaethical theories attempt to incorporate essential elements of expressivism and cognitivism, and thereby to accrue the benefits of both. Hybrid theories are often defended in part by appeals to slurs and other pejoratives, which have both expressive and cognitivist features. This paper takes far more seriously the analogy between pejoratives and moral predicates. It explains how pejoratives work, identifies the features that allow pejoratives to do that work, and models a theory of moral predicates on those features. The result is an expressivist theory that, among other advantages, is immune to embedding difficulties and avoids an overlooked difficulty concerning attitude ascriptions that is lethal to most other hybrid theories.

Beyond Simulation–Theory and Theory–Theory: Why social cognitive neuroscience should use its own concepts to study “theory of mind”

The debate between Simulation–Theory (ST) and Theory–Theory (TT) provides the dominant theoretical framework for research on “theory of mind” (ToM). Behavioural research has failed to provide clear methods for discriminating between these theories, but a number of recent studies have claimed that neuroimaging methods do allow key predictions of ST and TT to be tested. In the current paper it is argued that neuroimaging studies have not in fact provided any data that discriminates between ST and TT accounts of propositional attitude ascription, and moreover that it is uncertain that they will in the future. However, it is also argued that the fault lies with the ST/TT debate, not with the methods and concepts of neuroimaging research. Neuroimaging can certainly contribute to our understanding of ToM, and should contribute to the project of developing theoretical models more firmly grounded in specific cognitive and neural processes than ST or TT.

Problems for a quantificational theory of complex demonstratives

This paper presents a number of objections to Jeffrey King’s quantificational theory of complex demonstratives. Some of these objections have to do with modality, whereas others concern attitude ascriptions. Various possible replies are considered. The debate between quantificational theorists and direct reference theorists over complex demonstratives is compared with recent debates concerning definite descriptions.